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Who knows, maybe the flaming Redeemers with some POTMS will negate the entire army. But right now, I'm not seeing why I should go to a tournament.....

Mikeguth, there are three ways you can react to the situation:

1) The Beat 'Em Approach. Play against that kind of army and gain experience against it.

2) The Join 'Em Approach. If you think the build is that strong, start fielding it yourself.

3) The Pragmatic Approach. Ask yourself, did you regularly win your local RTT's before? Did you regularly find yourself on the top ten tables at GT's before? If not, then nothing has changed.

mikeguth wrote:

Dear Dr. Thunder-I've had plenty of experience against Orks. The question is, if the top calibre players can't do better than a draw against Orks in the last two Grand Tournaments, then is there really any army build which can beat them?

Doom and Gloom. :S

Lots of armies have had time at the top. Nidzilla was there for a while, so was Mech Eldar and Mach Tau, and SAFH Marines.

40K is a continually shifting game. Even if Orks were unbeatable, which I don't believe they are, sooner or later something will change that will unseat them. It is the nature of the game.

mikeguth wrote:Part of gaming to me is feeling competitive, that there is a chance.

Yes, but whose job is it to make sure you feel like you have a chance?

Are other players supposed to bring their B game, or are you supposed to improve your A game?

Somnicide wrote:

Moz wrote:If the game is moving towards horde armies by design, we really will need either lower point levels or longer game times just to the average 200 on 200 model game finished.

Or just slow play the orks and only give them 2 shooting phases. They will get so sick of never finishing a game that the list will change ;-)

Sure, if you want to risk getting yourself thrown out of the tournament for intentional delay of game.

Somnicide wrote:Actually, I was just joking. But, you don't get thrown out for it, your sportmanship gets dinged (it was an actual field on the checklist - for those who didn't play in any GTs this go around.)

I've thrown people out of tournaments for intentionally delaying their games.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:But a Powergamer? If he expects me to use a Powerlist against him, he in enroaching on my enjoyment. Tournaments are his natural stomping ground, but so obsessed is he, every game is a practice game. Everyone has to dance to beat of his drum of banality....

I find that tournament players have tournament lists that they use in tournaments and practice gamnes, and pickup-game lists that they use in pickup games. I've never known one who played tournament lists all the time.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:In theory, a Tournament should be about your pure skill on the board. But sadly, it boils down to who can write the most abusive and absurd list possible.

I disagree. A tournament is a test of whatever criteria the tournament organizers set. There is no "should."

The current 40K tournament tests and rewards a lot of things that happen long before you reach the table. List-building, converting, painting, and playtesting/experience.

The fact is, when players finally reach the table, much of the battle has already been won or lost. If you don't like that, then that is fine, but understand that ultimately your beef is with the system, not the players.

Hate the game not the playah.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:No, no, it's with the players.

There choice to go over the top competitive. Their choice to actively seek to remove as many tactical decisions from the game as possible.

But if the system didn't reward that, if the system rewarded different behavior to win, then wouldn't they adjust their behavior?

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Then the powergamer should shove off and play someone more inkeeping with his style.

Like at his precious Tournaments.

I think it's very easy and perfectly understandable to desire that anyone who thinks differently then we do should just disappear.

But that line of thought must always be resisted, because when both people on different sides of an argument dig in their heels and demand that the other side just go away, then the ability to resolve the issue completely disappears.

Compromise and consolidation are possible and should be sought for. I am a dedicated tournament player, but if someone asks me to tone down my list in a pickup game, I happily will. Why? Because I consider that to be good sportsmanship.

Likewise, I hope that he, after our game, would be willing to meet me halfway and tone up his list for our second game. By taking turns, both styles can be accommodated.

Steelmage99 wrote:

What is wrong with that? Does anybody really feel that they have been misled by GW in any way? Does anybody feel they have been promised a ruleset fit for tournaments? 40K has been a narative game since RT. Choosing to play it in a different way is fine....but there are consequences.

I dunno. I see the line of reasoning, but I just don't buy it.

You cannot invent an entire tournament system for 40K (which is exactly what Jervis did when he organized the RTT and GT/GD events) then turn around and say that you are completely unaccountable for ensuring that the rules allow for it.

It is political Bull Crap and Jervis knows it. He's trying to place the blame on the players, which is always what GW does when the flaws in it's products are exposed.

Bodichi wrote:BOLS put out an interesting article about possible tournament rules. they suggest somehting along the lines of not being able to take any duplicate entries. This means of course that you could still take 6 carnifexes they would just have to be kitted out differnently. So you could not take 45 lootas but instead, 15, 14, 13. this wouldnt solve the problem but it might at least make army lists look less copy and paste.

There's a much simpler way to limit spamming. Just change the Force Organizational Chart used in tournaments. For example:

HQ - 1 Required
Elites - 2 Maximum
Troops - 2 Required, 6 Maximum
Fast Attack - 2 Maximum
Heavy Support - 2 Maximum

Frazzled wrote:Which of course (types in boilerplate) helps some armies and hurts others.

Like who? I can't think of any army that really "needs" that third heavy support or elites choice to be competitive.

Moz wrote:Doc your suggestion helps any army that has strong troop and HQ selection while typically neglecting elite, fast, and heavy. Examples include Ork horde, twin lash + plague marine chaos. While hurting any army that tends to fall back on elite, heavy, fast options in lieu of weaker or very general troop selections. Examples here are Tau, marines, IG, eldar, nids, dark eldar.

Nah, I don't buy it.

I play all those armies, and none of them need that third heavy support or elite choice to be competative. In fact, it is in that third choice that you always find the things people complain about.

Noisy_Marine wrote:

GW seems to have some sort of weird honor system that precludes them from maxing out the best units. They even mention in the new DA FAQ that opponents are honor-bound not to give themselves advantages over their opponents.

Yes, I've noticed that as well. I wonder if it's a British thing or something.

Kilkrazy wrote:To generalise, it's a British thing that we don't see the point of playing a game when you're bound to win.

Where's the fun in it?

That doesn't absolve GW from writing rubbish codexes though.

I think I get it.

That's why GW can't fathom why we Americans are always asking them to be a referee.

Vaktathi wrote:

Doctor Thunder wrote:

Moz wrote:Doc your suggestion helps any army that has strong troop and HQ selection while typically neglecting elite, fast, and heavy. Examples include Ork horde, twin lash + plague marine chaos. While hurting any army that tends to fall back on elite, heavy, fast options in lieu of weaker or very general troop selections. Examples here are Tau, marines, IG, eldar, nids, dark eldar.

Nah, I don't buy it.

I play all those armies, and none of them need that third heavy support or elite choice to be competative. In fact, it is in that third choice that you always find the things people complain about.

Personally, I think a Tau army that has to rely mostly on its troops without as much Heavy support is at a much greater relative disadvantage than an Ork army without any heavy support with tons of troops. Certain armies have absolutely amazing troops (Orks, CSM) others have very mediocre troosp (Tau, IG)

And having two hammerheads instead of three is no big deal. Heck, I only field 2 hammerheads at 1750 anyway.

Redbeard wrote:I think cheesy is whatever is beating me at the time, so that I don't have to address my own failure to compensate for it somehow.

Every codex has something in it that other people call cheesy. I find that the players who are the most likely to call cheese are those that expect to lose and want an excuse so they don't feel bad about it after the fact. As in, "I only lost because my opponent had a cheesy army."

Quoted for Truth.

There's a reason why you don't hear top table players complaining about cheese.